Ask HN: Is it time to give up, or is it time to push on?

"our two other developers are learning Node and Angular, but not much progress has been made on the product."

Why are they learning this stuff now while you're under a deadline and have no product?

Do these guys have previous experience with other languages/frameworks/etc that would let them focus on building instead?

postpone.

get some money in the old way. if it is still in your head after 6-8months and dont let you sleep, you can still continue.

But frankly: 3 devs * 5 months and you have nothing? This is a no go for every investor, i am sure.

How far away is baseball season, 4 months? You can't have an MVP by then with several months already under belt? Is your Minimal Viable Product minimal enough?

If you plan to continue, you might need to look at chopping your launch features down a bit.

5 months should have been plenty to come up with something. It sounds like your initial goals were way too complicated. You need to aim small for a version 1 and then add features later. You have now learned one of the first lessons of software development.

This is the hardest question to answer. My startup was once at a point when any sane person would have given up, and yet here we are - alive, growing, funded. Before that there was a phase when I was all in. I was living in my car in Silicon Valley because I couldn't afford rent, stressed out of my mind, had no product, and could tell that we were a long way yet from having product, traction, and being compelling to investors (or even an accelerator). And I had zero dollars in the bank (actually significantly fewer than zero dollars).

So how did we get from point A to point B? I got a job so that I could pay the bills and think straight. My co-founder and I parted ways, and I ended up finding another. We built out the product and got enough users for an accelerator to take a risk on us, then for investors to do the same. Now, a year later, I have the perfect team with enough money and the right product.

It sounds like, if you're honest with yourself, you're a long way away from being a palatable investment. My guess is that you're even farther than you think you are, because that's just the nature of the beast.

If I hadn't taken the time to postpone - not give up, but realize the circumstances we were in weren't conducive to building a company - I'm sure we would have failed. If you're not going to make it, accept that fact, and do what you have to do to get your ducks in a row.

Sometimes "Don't give up" looks a lot like giving up, and that's the hardest part. But if you really believe in what you're doing, you do what you have to do, no matter what that is.

Just my two cents.

For me you are using the two frameworks harder to prototyping - this is more truth for node, in fact. (this is my opinion, take it on your own).

What I would do in your place is simplify your code. This is, change to ruby and do not use any front end framework (remove angular for now) and just stick with a simple bootstrap integration.

I don't think you've been at it long enough to quit. Here is an idea. Can you build something smaller that will generate revenue quickly instead of a much larger fantasy sports platform site? You obviously play fantasy sports so what if you wrote down all the things that drive you crazy about the big guys sites and apps and create a small solution for each problem on paper and then fix it with an app. Or look on a few app stores and find all the problems via viewing the low ratings on all the other apps out there. This is where the pain is and fantasy sports players will use whatever they find as a solution to their problems. What if you just build a small app that helped people get an advantage over other players that was easy to create, costs a couple bucks on an app store (or links to add rev. that can be dumped into an account that is linked to a top fantasy platform) and can be done before baseball season. You may have to do some Wizard of Oz stuff to start making money and get traction until you have some dough to hire a better team, etc. Here is an idea that may work: In my business, investments (actually building an SaaS product in FinTech) there are all these sites that for lack of better words are called "Guru" sites/apps. There are probably 5 sites and 5 - 10 apps out there. It sounds corny, but what people/companies have done (Using public filings) is find what the big guys (Hedge Funds/Institutions) are buying and then wrap a service around it. So if Warren Buffet buys MSFT they send out an email to all their subscribers telling them that Warren Buffet owns this now and they pile in. People will pay a lot of money for information. Some sites are slicker, where they have a good GUI with portfolio holdings of every single hedge fund, every single trade, weightings, etc., where you can slice and dice data a hundred different ways. Some have gotten as far as trading your accounts based on their (The Gurus) trades. So what if you built the simplist version of this where all the baddest ass fantasy players were tracked (Trades, allocations, etc.)and you sold a service where they get emailed when players are moved, allocations change, trades are made, etc., but the hook is you have to track the best, or maybe even professional athlete's picks (who knows more than a professional athlete about other athletes?) or maybe coaches, who knows. But keep it small, it has to create revenue immediately so you can pay rent and it has to be non-existing and something you could possibly sell to a big competitor (or put on their site to generate split ad revenue or something) because lets face it over time you could have a site with every widget, app, stat cruncher, etc. like a mall for fantasy players that need the best tools to kill it against all the guys in their office. Start thinking outside the box, but it has to be quickly built and must generate revenue quickly and then do what you want to do. Maybe follow an MVP regimen to get it going. Just some ideas, you could always build a quick picks aggregator that takes all the picking sites lists and makes a master list. Or generate a new way to rate players with a number (1,2,3,4) or alphabetic system (A,B,C,D), or turn players into stocks and make them into charts, quotes, graphs as a way or means to analyzing them better. Don't create a "market" for players though because it's been done and the Gov. doesn't like these sites/apps because they resemble gambling. good luck - Jordan

This isn't a hard question to answer. Your prospective investors really aren't going to invest without customer traction. You have no product, and you have just a month's living expenses left.

Even with a hail-mary play that gets you some a semblance of a working product and some users in December, you still won't have a trendline to show investors.

If plodding forward doesn't really cost you anything, because you're basically insolvent anyways, sure, keep plodding forward.

Otherwise: draw up Plan B. Doing something else doesn't mean you can't return to your fantasy sports platform later on. It just means you need to figure out a way to start getting paid, and that needs to be a priority.

Due respect to the rest of the comments on this thread, but how much you believe in yourself really doesn't have much to do with your decision.

Give up. Your current team is incompetent. They are padding their resume with node/angular experience at your expense. They should have a working demo after 2 months.

Pivot Today: Keep your team together, assuming they're good guys. Find some contract development work to bring cash-in. Carve out time to work on your e-sports platform as a side project. Recommend reading Alan Weiss on acquiring clients> http://www.amazon.com/How-Acquire-Clients-Techniques-Practit...

There's one awesome thing that is apparent here which is that you already know the answer to your question. Read your words: "boring details", "hired away", "not much progress", "developer doubts", "find a replacement", "too early", "need usage stats", "able to make rent", "stress is getting to me", "shut the whole thing down".

Your last comment is the most telling: "Giving up is way harder than trying."

When I say something is hard, what I mean is that it challenges and scares me. I live my life by one motto now: do the thing that scares you the most. It's worked so far for me - good things are happening already.

I think you should try doing what scares you the most. Is that keeping on keeping on, or quitting?

If your devs are learning Node & Angular on the job, it's time to find new devs. I've picked up far too many freelance projects where the devs just wanted to try a new framework, and Node/Angular are top of the list for "cool things to try".

If you're going to continue, find a dev with lots of experience in an old/stable platform (Rails, Django, etc) who can crank out version 0.1 in a month or two.

When you're this early, you don't have the resources to be educating your developers. They will bail before they're productive, and you're left footing the bill.

Just remember this: You don't need to be the guy in charge to be successful.

It takes a long time to find a CTO; and if you can't make rent in January, you aren't going to look very appealing. Even if you find a CTO who's into fantasy sports; given your company's (cough) debt, a potential CTO might think it's easier to start over, without you, your code, and our developers.

If you like the startup scene, you can go work for an early stage startup. Chances are, there's a sports-themed startup that you'll be able to do very well in.

You can also keep networking until you find the right team of people to work with. Remember, you don't need to be the guy in charge to be successful.

Sales fix everything.

Cash flow fixes everything.

If you can't generate cash then quit or pivot to something that does quickly.

Cash flow and traction leads to investors not the other way around.

Are you generating cash now? how much? what are you costs?

Focus on one thing and do it really well. I know you hear this all the time, but be the best SF Giants fantasy league.

Been there, done that. Had to make the choice between paying Heroku or my landlord, I moved out and started couch surfing and crashing with my parents. Eventually that wears thin - actually immediately that wears thin.

You have a highly in-demand skill-set and I suggest you go use it and restore your finances and your sanity. The tech world isn't going anywhere.

Spend the next 3 years applying all the lessons you've learned which are no doubt numerous. How would you have done things differently to avoid your current predicament and lack of runway? You get another chance - and in the meantime you can take a load off mentally and financially.

Edit to add: By the way, you're successful for even attempting this. Don't hang your head in shame or beat yourself up for wanting to quit, or think that something magical will materialize if you just hold on. View it as a step to something greater and move on. You'll have great stories to tell the people who've been safely ashore the entire time.

1. Solve your financial problem first. Get a job to make rent, even if it's seasonal. Once you know you can eat and sleep somewhere, it will be easier to step back and be objective.

2. Decide if the market is there "if everything was perfect". Nothing will be perfect, but if there is no market even in a perfect world, well, walk away. If you think there is a market even in an imperfect world that you want to go after, then that's your answer. But your second step is deciding whether to move forward on the project. If you aren't going to make the baseball season (which is likely), decide if it would be better to target the 2015 football season opener or the 2016 major league baseball opener.

3. PM me anytime, I have a sports media company and I am very tech-savvy, I'm a longtime coder, I've worked for major corporations as an architect and manager, and I've worked with/advised multiple smaller 'grassroots' sports companies. I'm not offering to build your platform, but I am offering someone who you can at least bounce ideas off of that will know your market. And I'm not building a competing platform. I might not be able to solve your problems of today, but if you decide to move forward with it, I might be able to provide objective advice about your market and tech.

If you live in the Bay Area, I would be happy to give you 30-45 minutes of my time and listen to your situation. Sometimes these things can be better clarified/understood in person.

I've been helped by HN members in many ways (mostly online though, and mostly indirectly), but in this case I feel compelled to "give back".

I have a few years of mentoring experience, and I can safely promise that with whatever suggestion I will come up with, I won't make your situation worse :)

[edit] just as a last thought, in case we won't meet - it seems that with such a short runaway, there's not much to do. The question you should ask yourself is rather this one: should I simply give up, or should I "regroup" and try again in a few months (e.g. with a short consulting gig in between, to get some cash flowing)?

Can you get a part-time job to pay bills until you can sell the product?

> "learning..."

is a gigantic red flag. They should be learning the problem domain, not technologies with which to solve the problem. I'm with the folks saying they're wanking around on your dime and time to learn a thing they're interested in - which would be great, if you weren't about to starve.

I don't really have a lot of experience with which to base this, but...

I can't comment as to whether you should abandon your idea. I can comment that you should abandon your current plan for realizing it: That plan has become untenable.

Also, learn to code, at least enough to approximate competency. (Or use the wine trick: Ask for details, and look for coherence and passion - someone who knows wine can tell you /all about it/. You just need to know enough to judge coherence, not accuracy)

All you need is to find the right find of partner? Get someone in as a partner and give him lots of stocks. Make sure he knows is his technology and makes a promise to deliver (put it in the contract).

Fail fast and often.

In the spirit of "any advice" :)

How did you fund the initial 5 months?

The reason I ask is, if you don't have a ton of people to support at this point, you might want to move into "hibernation mode" and get a job to pay your bills while looking for folks you can count on to help you advance your vision and get to a point where you have traction, users, sales, etc, something that would be appealing to an investor.

If you already have taken money from an investor though, your options will be more limited.

Take a hard look at the market you are trying to penetrate and give yourself an honest assessment of what your chances of success are. Would you invest in yourself if you were angel or VC?

Think about how long you would have to spend on this idea to reach that goal and decide whether it is something you really love or not because 'success' can involve an arduous climb of 7 years or more.

Ping me – I might be able to help: I run a (new but fast-growing) consulting co, work for equity, have fantasy sports on our project wish list (you have to have a unique take, though).

That said, I think the top advice here is good.

(My contact info is at the bottom of 10x.co.)

Reality check: Curll, if you can't fix your cash-flow problem in 30 days, then you already know the experiment requires a strategic pivot.

It doesn't help to question that.

It will have an emotional impact for you but fighting facts will not help you. Deep breath and change the perspective to see how you need to pivot. Don't narrow possibilitites. On the contrary, expand them. You might feel blind or stuck for a little but do some Customer Development (essentially listening) to get inspired again.

You need the cash-flow problem fixed and is better if you can fix it by yourself delivering direct value (AKA, your paying clients).

Even if you have to do something else (diversification) and everybody tells you that you should focus, if it's not working then is not working (AKA pivot needed).

Remember that you can always do the self-angel strategy (AKA bootstrap) and do that project as secondary thing instead of primary. Might not be so exciting but it will protect you (and reality around you is asking for it).

Do not surrender to peer pressure on cheap advice (perhaps including this one). Stay questioning and trust your subconscious intuition and discern.

What would you say to you if you were to advice your son on this?

Best!